Tyler resident who died of COVID-19 honored on New York Life Building in NYC

Published 5:45 am Sunday, October 3, 2021

About a year after losing his battle with COVID-19, a lifetime East Texas resident and family man is being honored in New York City in an exhibit dedicated to those who lost their lives while saving others during the pandemic.

The Brave of Heart Fund is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the families of fallen heroes, providing grants and emotional support services to help them through difficult times. To date, the fund has granted over $20 million dollars to nearly 600 families.

Through a partnership with a digital art gallery, together ARTHOUSE.NYC & the Brave of Heart Fund presented “The Hero Art Project,” which features 29 rotating portraits of healthcare workers who have died while fighting COVID-19.

The portraits, each painted by a different artist, appear displayed in five windows on the ground floor at the southeast corner of the iconic New York Life Building at 51 Madison Avenue in New York City, from Sept. 27 to Oct. 25. Each person’s story is told along with their portraits.

Dr. Leroy Collum, 86, of Tyler, was a dedicated psychologist, who at the peak of the pandemic, was visiting nursing homes to provide East Texas residents with counseling services. His family believes that’s where he contracted the virus.

“It’s real difficult, even a year out, to have anything seem normal,” said his wife, Diane Collum, who tested positive for COVID-19 with her husband last year in July.

Vaccines weren’t yet available at that time, so the Collums were not able to have that additional layer of protection against the virus. Though Diane would recover, Collum would stay in the hospital for about a week before his death Aug. 3.

He left behind his wife, 12 children, 25 grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.

“It kind of makes you angry when you’re in line somewhere and you’re social distancing and wearing your mask and people are talking about how COVID isn’t real or it’s not a very serious illness, because you realize that there are a lot of people out there like you who that have lost someone. It’s serious and disheartening, but people don’t really understand that,” Diane Collum said.

Because of COVID-19, the family wasn’t able to have the funeral they wanted, and ultimately had to cremate Leroy Collum.

The large Collum family had to comfort each other through the phone and without human touch because Diane Collum still had COVID-19.

Their son Carter Collum saw this and knew he needed to find a way to show his mother support, so, he reached out to the Brave of Heart.

“My father worked up until the time he fell ill with COVID,” Carter Collum said.

At the time he had been working in nursing homes, facilities began closing, not allowing family members to visit loved ones. Leroy Collum felt if he didn’t go, he would be deserting his patients.

“My dad knew the risks he faced going to work each day. He knew that was exactly the reason he had to get up and go to work everyday. He knew his patients in those nursing homes were scared and mostly alone. He knew by going to work everyday he was providing a service that was desperately needed and worth the risk,” Carter Collum said. “When you think of a typical hero you probably would not think of my dad, but to those lonely patients who sit isolated and scared in their rooms, my dad was a hero.”

He knew when he passed, Diane Collum would undergo some financial burdens. Therefore, he started researching ways to help her out.

To his surprise, the Collum family got the grant, which Carter Collum said helped pay for his father’s final expenses, allowing the family to focus on each other and not the financial burdens.

Several months after receiving the grant, Carter Collum said the Brave of Heart organization reached out to his family and asked if they’d be interested in having his father’s portrait done by an artist for an exhibit in New York City.

The family said yes and was able to choose from several artists. They chose Chris Clark, of Florida.

“His artwork was beautiful and instantly spoke to me. I knew he was the artist that we wanted to paint my father right away. However, we were not guaranteed the artist we wanted and had to pick a couple of backup options too. Luckily, we got the artist we wanted. We could not be any happier than we are with the way Chris portrayed our father,” Carter Collum said.

The family let Collum’s portrait be in the exhibit is because the organization helps show those who have lost their lives to COVID-19 are real people who were impacted, Carter Collum said.

“COVID seems to have become so political that it has almost desensitized people. We see the huge numbers in the paper and on the news and it is hard for us to conceive that there are really this many deaths, this many families that have been shattered by the virus,” he said.

He said exhibits like such help put a face to the pandemic.

“Hopefully, exhibits like this can help bring us back together. Hopefully, it can show you something that unites us all, that we are all human and that we are all in this fight together,” Carter Collum said.

Diane Collum said her husband would have loved to be acknowledged for his work with other people, and for people to understand the sacrifices people like him made. She also said he would have liked the modern abstract art style his portrait reflects.

She said her husband always wore his mask in nursing homes and when talking to patients. She believes if there had been more information at the beginning of the pandemic and if he had gotten ill when doctors knew more, he would have still been around longer or still here.

Today, the Collum family is vaccinated, and Diane Collum said the family is planning a trip to New York City to see the Hero Art Project exhibit this month.

“My father died before the vaccine was available. He did not have a chance to protect himself in the same way we all do now. Please protect yourself and those around you by getting vaccinated,” Carter Collum said.